My Dad, who is in his eighties, has always, at least in the fifty-odd years I’ve known him, enjoyed making HO scale models of Canadian prototypes (despite being British) from the 1950s and 1960s. His beautiful models must be seen to be believed. I was sad recently when he announced that he reckoned he had enough models and don’t see any point in acquiring any more. I was sad because I know that even though he runs his trains on his excellent indoor layout, his real passion has always been building them.
I made a comment that I have quite a few unbuilt 16mm kits lying about, and he reacted with enthusiasm. After a bit of discussion about which one he liked, I sent him an IP Engineering Talyllyn guards van “#5”. He has always been a bit perplexed by the fact I like to build British models (despite being Canadian) and particularly in a garden scale (despite not having a garden).
Anyway here are some pictures he sent me of the almost-finished van. I have ordered some decals for it, which is all it requires to be finished.
I didn’t notice at first, but when I looked at the pictures more carefully I was struck by how realistic the roof looks. This is certainly not standard IP Engineering quality, so I rang Dad and asked how he did it. He replied that he’d painted the roof black, then stuck model aeroplane “silkspan” tissue into the wet paint, and then painted it black again while the first coat was still wet. He said he’d volunteered at a railway museum when he was a young man and had helped restore the roof of a real passenger coach in just that way. Since that conversation, I’ve noticed other little subtle details that were not in the kit, such as the turning drum and bit of chain at the bottom of the brake handle.
Needless to say I am very impressed with his work and I will always enjoy having a vehicle on my (future, theoretical) garden railway that was built by my Dad. I’m looking at my rake of unbuilt Brandbright panelled coaches right now and wondering if I would be pushing it if I sent them to him.
